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Global Warming

The social cost of carbon (SCC), a carbon price calculated from cost-benefit based integrated assessment models and used to inform some climate policies, will always be highly disputed, partly because a key model assumption, the centennial climate damage valuation function (CDF), will "always" be highly unknowable.

Aridity—the ratio of atmospheric water supply (precipitation; P) to demand (potential evapotranspiration; PET)—is projected to decrease (that is, areas will become drier) as a consequence of anthropogenic climate change, exacerbating land degradation and desertification. However, the timing of significant aridification relative to natural variability—defined here as the time of emergence for aridification (ToEA)—is unknown, despite its importance in designing and implementing mitigation policies.

Clouds’ efficiency at reflecting solar radiation and trapping the terrestrial radiation is strongly modulated by the diurnal cycle of clouds (DCC). Much attention has been paid to mean cloud properties due to their critical role in climate projections; however, less research has been devoted to the DCC. Here we quantify the mean, amplitude, and phase of the DCC in climate models and compare them with satellite observations and reanalysis data.